The Wisconsin Migration Research Group is a Madison-based forum for individuals interested in the cross-disciplinary study of processes related to migration and transnationalism. It was started by and continues to be led by graduate students and faculty allies. As of early 2009, there were 68 graduate students, faculty, and academic staff from campus. These individuals are mostly affiliated with UW Madison, but the email list reaches members from around the world.

David Rangel, Dept of Sociology, "The National Day of Action and Student Protest"This paper uses Protest Event Analysis to situate The National Day of Action (The April 10th, 2006 massive nation wide immigration rally) in the context of student protest and to see if the move Walkout, which premiered on March 17, 2006, influenced the massive student protest which emerged in subsequent days. It uses a social movement prospective to understand the movement emgergence but uses Marxism, Neo-Marism, and Immigration as theoretical perspectives to understand the context which lead up and influenced the collective action.We encourage reading/skimming the main arguments of the paper in advance.

We are very pleased to release a one-of-a-kind, fully searchable onlinedatabase that tracks and catalogues 1,059 bills and resolutions introducedby state legislators in 2007 to regulate immigrants and immigration. TheState Responses to Immigration Database allows users to search 2007legislation by state, geographic region, subject area, bill status, andlegislative typology.

Some quick findings:

* State legislators in the 50 states introduced a total of 1,059immigration-related bills and resolutions in 2007, of which 167 (or 16percent) were enacted into law. The vast majority of bills proposed in2007 either expired (33 percent) or remained pending (45 percent) atyear's end without any legislative resolution.

* Bills that regulate employment and expand state and local participationin immigration enforcement were the most popular topics of 2007legislation, accounting for 551 bills.

* Measures that expand the rights of immigrants were enacted at a higherrate (19 percent of 313 bills) than measures that either contractimmigrants' rights (11 percent of 263 bills), regulate employment (10percent of 237 bills), or relate to law enforcement (11 percent of 264bills).

* Bills that expand immigrant rights were the most popular type of measureintroduced in 2007 in states with the largest immigrant populations, suchas California, New York, and Texas. In contrast, bills that contractimmigrant rights were the most popular type of measure introduced in 2007in states with the fastest-growing foreign-born population, such as SouthCarolina and Nevada.

* The top three states to propose immigration measures during the yearwere Texas (104 bills), New York (98), and Tennessee (83). But the topthree states that actually passed immigration legislation and saw thebills signed into law were Hawaii (15), Texas (11), and Arizona (9).

A collaborative project between the Migration Policy Institute and aresearch team at the New York University School of Law, the StateResponses to Immigration Database is designed to offer a fine-grainedpicture of state legislative immigration-related activity in 2007.

Search the bills by geography, passage or failure, subject area, or anMPI/NYU typology that determines whether the measures would contract orexpand immigrants' rights, or deal with employment or law enforcement.

We have posted the 2007 legislation and will add data for 2008, inaddition to 2001-2006 data, in the coming months. This data tool is aproject of MPI's National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy. It wasmade possible by the generous support from Carnegie Corporation of NewYork.

AcknowledgementsMany people contributed to the development of the State Responses toImmigration Database. We would like to thank MPI Nonresident FellowCristina Rodriguez (Associate Professor of Law, NYU School of Law) andMuzaffar Chishti (Director, Migration Policy Institute at NYU School ofLaw) who supervised a wonderful research team at NYU. We are grateful toMPI's Laureen Laglagaron, Michelle Mittelstadt, Michael Fix, MargieMcHugh, and April Siruno for great ideas and the long hours they put intothe tool. We are thankful to the MPI interns for their assistance in doingspotchecks. Last, but not least, we owe a debt of gratitude to our techteam, Ethan Andrews and DJ LaChapelle of HiFrontier, who made this tool anonline reality.

Monday, September 29, 2008

The Asian American Studies Program presents its 2008-2009 Speakers Series

Critical Perspectives on Hmong Scholarship and Experiences The focus of the speaker series is to provide a platform for scholars, community leaders, and artists from, and working with, the Hmong community to share their work with the UW-Madison campus and the Madison Hmong community.

Please join us Friday, October 3, 2008 from 2-4 pm in welcoming Dr. Chia Youyee Vang, Assistant Professor of History, from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The Wisconsin Migration Research Group now has 60 subscribers. In Fall 2006, around the time it was formed, there were under 10 subscribers.

A brief skim of the subscribers indicates that at least 9 are faculty (mostly at Wisconsin), many are sociology graduate students. Most of the new requests to be email subscribers are students from Prof. Susan Friedman's seminar on "migration and diaspora" (thanks for circulating the email, Susan!).

Many subscribers have now moved on beyond the borders of Wisconsin to places like New Jersey, San Francisco, parts of Spain, Colorado, Berkeley, and a few current Steering Committee members are on dissertation fellowships to collect data in Turkey and South Korea. There's now a "diaspora" of members, or so to speak.

NOTE:

We'll announce a date for the first dinner gathering, location/date/time to be announced shortly. It will take place in the last week of September.

Meanwhile, everyone who has contacted Mytoan to be subscribed as of today has been added to the list. :)

Saturday, August 30, 2008

A few of the active participants from the last academic year are away doing international fieldwork (good for them!), but I know there's a handful of new graduates in town who want to be involved in a group that discusses and reads migration/immigrant related research.

1) VOLUNTEERS TO PRESENT? Who wants to present an in-progress paper or research proposal this semester? This is terribly self-interested of me to mention, but I know that I would benefit tremendously from having a chance to talk through some preliminary ideas for projects.

2) STEERING COMMITTEE? Who would be interested in serving on the AY 2008-2009 steering committee? We need to secure a pipeline of new leadership as the old crew is stepping back for others to get more involved. Being on the steering committee is a very low-demand responsibility (it can include volunteering your living room to host meetings, initiating meetings, bringing new members on board, or updating the blog or facebook group, and being the list moderator who adds/deletes email subscribers).

3) BLOG CONTRIBUTORS? Who else would like to be invited to be a blog contributor? Visit http://www.madisonmigration.blogspot.com. I haven't updated it in a while, but there's plenty of opportunities to have a "virtual" presence with the group.

4) FIRST MEETING DATE? We should have one some time in September. Please send a list of preferred times/days of the week (e.g., late afternoons, Fridays; early evenings, Tuesdays, etc.; we can be family friendly!)

Please feel free to share this email with others who aren't currently subscribed to the group's email list.

The UW-Madison Arts Institute and the Center for the Humanities arepleased to welcome Juan Felipe Herrera to Madison, April 7-11.

Since Juan Felipe Herrera began writing poetry, plays, and children'sbooks, his work has been devoted to the politics and identity issuesof immigration in the Latin@ and Chican@ communities. He is best knownfor his immensely popular books Super Cilantro Girl/La superniña delcilantro and Calling the Doves, which won the Ezra Jack Keats award in1997. He is a poet, performer, writer, cartoonist, teacher, andactivist who draws from real life experiences as well as years ofeducation to inform his work. His most recent book of poetry, fromwhich he will perform on April 10, is 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can'tCross the Border.

As part of Herrera's residency he will be leading a workshop onImmigration and Memory.

Wednesday, April 9, 3 pmHumanities NOW Forum: "Immigration and Memory"6191 Helen C. White Hall600 N. Park St Free and open to the public.Light refreshments will be served.

Sponsored by the UW-Madison Arts Institute and Center for theHumanities in partnership with the departments of English,Communication Arts, Spanish and Portuguese, Theater and Drama, Libraryand Information Studies, and the Chican@ and Latin@ Studies Program,LACIS (Latin American Caribbean and Iberian Studies), and the MadisonMetropolitan School District.

Monday, January 7, 2008

This was a very productive and successful past semester due to the participation of so many of you who have been a "virtual" and "in-person" participant of the research group.

We hosted delicious dinners where presenters got to share their in-progress work with a small, intimate group of mostly graduate students in the Social Sciences and Humanities at UW Madison. Thank you to Steering Committee Member Hae Yeon, Dept of Sociology, for hosting these lovely dinners in her beautiful apartment.

We have a total of 55 subscribers to the listserve: majority of whom are graduate students (one undergraduate), faculty, and staff at Madison join our listserve and several colleagues overseas and elsewhere.

We became part of a nationwide academic Immigration Network comprised of Berkeley, Harvard, UC San Diego, University of Chicago, Georgetown, and Minnesota researchers.

Our email group continues to circulate calls for conference papers, reports, and queries relevant to the study of migration/immigrants/public policy/race& ethnicity/methodological issues.

Our Facebook.com group currently has 15 members. Search for "Wisconsin Migration Research Group" to join -- anyone can be added.